James Patterson Meet the Author

James Patterson is the world's biggest-selling author.

He is best-known for his thrillers, but he's also written science

fiction, novels for young people, romance and nonfiction.

To date, he's published over 140 books, which have sold more

than 350 million copies around the world.

And he's also the most-borrowed author at UK libraries.

But that's not enough for James Patterson,

he now wants an even bigger audience, by selling books to people

he thinks have abandoned reading, and his solution is called

Hopefully, they are a revolution in reading

At the least they are going to be an evolution.

They are under 150 pages, relatively inexpensive,

and hopefully impossible to put down.

It's like one of my regular books on Alex Cross,

except at, like, 145 pages, very tight.

With a BookShot, you can get on the train, you can go to work,

you get on the train and go home, and you've read one.

So you've accomplished something, which is kind of cool.

So the slogan is "all thriller, no filler", and is that what makes

you think somebody will pick up one of these, rather than

I mean, there's no fat, it's just all story,

So if you like Alex Cross, here's an Alex Cross

you haven't read before, but it just happened so quickly.

Here in England we're going to start with six,

so it's kind of a category of being Alex Cross,

there will be a zoo, there's one about the Royals

which is kind of fun, there's one about a big diamond heist.

Recently I was interviewed in my office and I pulled out these

eight very deep drawers, and I have 107 of these

BookShots that are either finished now or in process.

And of the 107, I would say 80 of them are stories that I created.

In fact, the person interviewing me just went,

like, "this is insane, this is crazy."

But I think for readers, this is going to be a real boon,

You've written some of them, but like your full-length novels,

Just tell us a bit about how that actually works in practice.

I wrote last year over 2000 pages of outlines.

My outlines are always three or four drafts.

So it's an insane amount of writing just that.

And usually what I'll do when I co-write a book

For these, the outline might be 30-something pages,

and it just goes chapter, by chapter, by chapter.

And what I will do with the co-writer is I'll

give them the outline, I will say please contribute

to the outline, because that's useful, and it gets the co-writer

The template for the BookShots is that every single chapter moves

both the characterisation and the story forward,

and turns on the movie projector in our heads.

So if that's not happening, meaning that you can't see it,

you can't feel it, you can't taste it, you can't smell it,

if it's not moving forward, if I'm not interested

in the character, I will say, hold it.

Occasionally it's that I didn't figure out the outline correctly,

more often it's that the co-writer is, you know...

If you look at them, they're smaller, obviously

Hopefully on all the trains and the planes you'll see people

I've read that you work seven days a week, 52 weeks

Do you not even take a day off for Christmas Day?

Christmas I would say would be a very light day.

But generally it is seven days a week.

Somebody said, you're lucky if you find something

you like to do, and then it's a miracle if somebody

With doing these BookShots, this has been the most

Because I love to tell stories, and I was kind of blocked

with the books that I had, because I had the Alex Cross series

and the Women's Murder Club, and Private, and it's like,

So there was no place for me to let my imagination

I will have more content than Marvel by the end of this year.

It's little wonder that you're known as the busiest man in publishing,

not just because of the number of books you're writing,

but also because of the time and the money that you spend

For me, the most important thing is getting kids reading.

Because, if our kids don't become at least competent readers,

especially kids who are at risk, how are they going to get jobs, how

If they get through, if they are 10 or 11 years

old and are not competent, they are going to be

a drag on the society, on the city, on all of us,

and it's going to make for a much harder life for them.

As individuals, I can't do much to solve global warming,

But as an individual, we can all get the kids

We can help the local school, we can help the local libraries.

Libraries are a big issue right now, and how they get funded

I just hope that people will stand up and go,

our libraries are really important, so we need the money

How much does your interest in this stem from the fact that you had

When he was eight years old, that summer we said,

We said, yes, unless you want to live in the garage.

We said, this is going to be painless, we're going to go

out and find books that you'll really like.

So we went out and got a dozen books, we got him a Percy Jackson,

By the end of the summer, Jack had read a dozen books,

and his reading skills went up dramatically.

Ultimately, they have SAT scores in America, so a perfect

He's going to an Ivy League college next year.

In terms of what can happen, if you take charge

with your children, and make it your responsibility.

There's nothing more important than a mother and father,

grandparents too, making sure their kids read.

It's good you get them out and they get some exercise,

that's a positive, but they've got to be able to read.

You are hugely successful, a writer of commercial mainstream fiction.

Do you hanker after writing the great American novel?

I have already, they're just commercial!

I love what I do, I think it serves a purpose.

On my gravestone, "James kept a lot of people up late at night."

And BookShots are going to be one of the reasons.

This is going to change the way people read.

James Patterson, it's been great to talk to you, thanks so much.

Happy New Year. There will be contrast in conditions to start the

New Year with better weather in the north and wintry